Tempering Steel
by Lady Emzebel
Summary: Jack Spicer is about to die and Chase Young is going to be the one to kill him. Such a thing leads to a series of events that no-one could have possibly forseen in a million years.  WIP
1. Prologue

Prologue

_At first he's unconscious, and then his entire existence is pain. It takes long excruciating moments until he becomes aware of the fact that he is a tangible human mass and not just a swirling cloud of agony given self-conscious thought by some cruel, merciless God. His limbs feel liquefied, and he's sure his brain is a molten mess inside his splitting skull, not that he can remember what the parts of his body are called, just that he can feel them and they hurt beyond all cognizable recognition. It would be a blessing to be paralyzed, numb to all feeling for the rest of his life, but in truth the physical pain is nothing compared to how his heart feels. Clearly some great hand had reached into his chest and squeezed it into a bloody pulp, somehow without actually killing him, because that's the only possible explanation as to why it aches so badly. _

"_Boss-lady, c'mere and get a load of this."_

"_Well, looky here..."_

_At some point, he perceives a low fuzz of noise, indistinct and unintelligible, but he cannot muster the strength or the desire to learn what's going on around him. Without warning, fierce white light batters at his closed eyelids and he lets out a noise that doesn't sound human in protest. The light goes away but is replaced by the sensation of something touching the endless plain of agony that was once his face. _

"_Hey! Hey, Queenie, you alive?"_

_Meaningless sound vibrates dully beside his ear and he does not respond, only keeps the burning sacs of air that were once his lungs expanding and deflating in a passable imitation of life. In doing so, the pain flares, becomes sharper and unbearable and, mercifully, he passes out. Something flutters around the region of his neck, unbeknownst to him, searching for a pulse. _

"_Well I'll be a two-headed rattler! Get 'im to the infirmary, now!"_

_It found one._


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

He was soaking wet, freezing cold, battered, bruised, and terrified but still he ran like all the hounds of hell were on his heels—and all things considered, it was an apt description. Jack's heart pounded in this throat, beating a painful rhythm that was surely too fast for the organ to maintain without exploding in his chest cavity. Acidic fear and adrenaline seared through his veins as he fled the monstrosity hot on his heels. An incensed snarl echoed behind him, threatening to burst the eardrums already under so much pressure from the thundering pulse in his head. Not daring to look back but instead focusing on the way ahead, Jack neglected to look down at his feet and cracked his shin on a jagged protrusion of flint. He hit the ground hard, slicing up the palms of his hands when they came up to break his fall. Regardless, he ended up biting clean through the tip of his tongue, filling his mouth with salty, coppery liquid, and giving his nose a hairline fracture if the amount of the blood gushing from both nostrils was any indication.

Choking out a sob of petrified desperation, the youth drew on any last reserves of strength he had, bolted up off the ground, and ducked sideways into a perilously narrow crack splintering the side of the steep ravine wall. He managed to pull himself inside the crevasse just in time, before a huge dark shape barrelled past where he'd been only seconds before. Without wasting any time, Jack forced his way further into the narrow gap, praying to any and all that it was a tunnel leading elsewhere, anywhere but this nightmare. Mindless of the rock that scratched and scraped his skin, jarred his ribs horribly—dimly, his subconscious registered that he'd cracked a few—and, finally, wrenched his shoulder free of its socket when he tumbled out of the claustrophobic crevasse into blessedly open space. No, not open. Enclosed. Though the space was large and definitely offered a way to escape were he to fly—an option unavailable to him given his faithful helipack lay several frenzied minutes of sprinting away in an entirely different rock quarry—it was surrounded on all sides by sheer walls, a hundred feet high at least, of unforgiving rock. They were far too tall to jump given he wasn't a super-powered teen and to try to scale them without a safety harness would be suicide.

But then, staying there trapped like a mouse in a cage was suicide too. The rock wall exploded behind him and Jack whipped around, an unfinished scream gurgling in his throat, blood spilling from his lips and down his chin, mixing with that from his nose. Staring at the humanoid reptile, which slowly shook its diamond-hard scales free of the dust and dirt that coated them, with wide terrified eyes, the young man backed away until he felt solid rock bite into his bruised back. Slowly, Jack slid down until he was slumped against the very thing that barred his escape and gazed in horror at the form of a very _very_ angry dragon.

This was it. His idol, Chase Young, was going to kill him.

* * *

><p>So, this should be a weekly update thing. Hopefully.<p>

Some warnings: I haven't finished the story yet, though it's all planned out, and while it's looking to be fairly gen, there will probably be a vaguely Clacky flavour about it (yes, Clack, not _Chack_) with some definite RaiKim on the side.


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Chase Young does not make a habit of attending Xiaolin Showdowns, only making an appearance when a Shen Gong Wu which he does not desire to fall into the hands of the forces of good reveals itself. This particular Wu that had been sought by all Xiaolin and Heylin members alike is something of a sister Wu to the Shroud of Shadows. The Amulet of Nezha makes it so that a person's presence is undetectable by anyone who might otherwise perceive them, despite the person being technically visible to the naked eye. It was most commonly used by Grand Master Dashi in the past to play harmless pranks on his fellow monks or to sneak into enemy territory unnoticed.

Such magic even Chase cannot perform; yes, he can cloak himself in shadow and spy on whomever he desires, but the fact is that even his strongest concealment is not foolproof to the likes of Wuya—even without the full extent of her powers intact—or Hannibal Bean, or even the Xiaolin Dragons-in-training whose instincts and skills of detection are growing sharper and more refined by the day. Furthermore, Chase knows there is something seriously wrong when even _Jack Spicer_ is becoming wise to his ways; being able to sense a minute shift in the atmosphere that he's come to associate with the impending presence of the immortal dragon-lord.

Clearly, Chase is losing his touch.

More displeasing still, Jack has been using his newfound power of perception in ways that allow him to ignore or even avoid the immortal, something hitherto unheard of given Spicer's ridiculous infatuation and hero-worshipping of Chase. More than once the immortal has dropped in to scare and then tease and ridicule Spicer for his own amusement (he couldn't magically hack into the boy's computer system anymore, given that Jack had taken precautions and put an end to such a thing) only to discover the boy well-hidden and tinkering under one of his ghastly machines—so well in fact that it takes more effort than Chase wishes to use to locate the boy—with that terrible, trashy techno music blasting in his ears via giant, sound-cancelling earphones. When Chase calls the boy out on it, Spicer stubbornly insists that he hasn't been ignoring Chase: he just hasn't heard him. Then he points to the earphones and goes back to his work.

It infuriates Chase because he has no desire to kill, maim, or seriously hurt the stupid, petulant brat (seeing as Jack's the only up-and-coming Heylin recruit the evil side has, despite how pig-headedly incompetent he is) but now he has absolutely no way of getting back at Spicer for being so inconceivably irritating in the past. Not to mention the fact that losing Jack's unwavering affection means the loss of the greatest source of ego-stroking he's had for centuries, and if there's one thing Chase most definitely is, it's a conniving, extremely _narcissistic_ bastard. How ironic that Jack Spicer should suddenly start to decide he doesn't want to hang out with Chase Young anymore when the pale youth is just starting to get so _interesting_.

No, this would not do. Chase resolves to acquire the Amulet of Nezha so he can go back to terrifying the wits out of Spicer until the boy outgrows his naivety, his unfortunate tendency to sympathise with the Xiaolin monks, and turns his path onto that of _True Evil_ once and for all. He doesn't care how long it takes; Chase will goddamn manage it even if it near kills him.

The idea works well in theory, but not so well in practice. Inevitably, in the showdown for the desired Wu—a three-way clusterfuck between Kimiko, Jack, and Chase himself, each of them winding through a labyrinthine race course that was once an abandoned rock quarry in the Canadian wilderness to the finish line—Jack somehow manages to screw up yet again and it costs him the victory of obtaining the Wu. This is standard practice; what isn't, however, is Jack's screw up afflicting Chase in the process, resulting in the Xiaolin monks being one Shen Gong Wu richer.

No-one is even entirely sure how Jack does it; he was actually doing well in the race, neck and neck with Kimiko as they hurtled toward the last leg of the race, Kimiko aided with the Lotus Twister, Jack with the Falcon's Eye and his various techno gadgets. None of the spectators—the rest of the monks, Dojo, Wuya, and Hannibal Bean on that mutated budgie of his—could be sure in which direction the scale of luck would tip until Chase appeared out of nowhere, the path he'd been taking merging with Jack and Kimiko's in the last ten metre dash, just a few steps in front of Jack. All that anyone could figure out was that Jack must have panicked, perhaps thinking Chase's sleek, blurred form was one of the giant fanged beasts—rats and various insects mutated by the magic of the Xiaolin Showdown—that served as obstacles on the race course and tried to defend himself.

Whatever the cause of Jack's supposed actions, something small and metal had slammed into Chase's back, just right of his spine, with the force of a ricocheting bullet and lodged itself firmly between two ribs. Unsurprisingly, this was actually enough to wind and hurt Chase and knock him off his feet. A second, infinitely lighter impact that he barely acknowledged through the haze of pain and shock told Chase that Spicer had tripped over him and gone sprawling, inelegantly, face-first into the ground. Within moments a bright flash of light signified Kimiko had been victorious in obtaining the Amulet.

Lying still, the blood pounding in Chase's skull blocking out all noise, the Lao Máng Lóng's magic combined with Chase's own begins to work on pushing the intruding piece of metal from between his ribs, knitting flesh and skin back together flawlessly in its wake. Despite the discomfort, Chase sits up and brings himself to crouch back on his haunches, picking up the potentially deadly projectile and examining it. A rivet, a simple insignificant rivet, something Jack might have easily picked up from any old corner of the rock quarry, and the boy had seen fit to take him down with such an unworthy shot.

Though such a realization seems to come from thousands of miles away and takes simply millennia to arrive, it is only a few short minutes that Chase sits there, eerily still, hunched over the tiny metal object still covered in his own green-tinged blood. The very air comes to a standstill and all life in and around the quarry falls stiff and silent. Deer, bears and wolverines alike flee deeper into the surrounding forest; squirrels bolt away to seek leafy refuge elsewhere; rats retreat into their hidey holes; insects burrow so deep into the earth they feel they might never know sunlight again—if any of the creatures knew how to pray they would do so fervently that the _colddarkevil_ will pass over them quickly and harmlessly.

Shortly after, Wuya, Hannibal and the Xiaolin monks sense the circling clouds of impending doom, Chase firmly ensconced in the eye of the rapidly swelling storm of rage, but Jack remains oblivious, or perhaps only partially, as evidenced by the scared apologies that trip brokenly from his trembling lips.

"C-chase? Chase, I'm s-so...s-so s-sorry..."

No one speaks. Wuya shivers and even Hannibal nervously clenches and unclenches his vine-like appendages around Ying-Ying's feathers. The four monks and Dojo hardly draw breath as they wait in horrified anticipation. No one dares to make a sound as Chase, his thick mane of hair concealing his face from their view, twitches his head in the direction of Jack's stuttering.

"I d-dunno w-what happened...I...I just...G-god I'm so..."

A lock of obscuring jet black hair, inspired by gravity, slithers like a snake out of the way of the immortal's marble-smooth features. Chase's eyes meet Jack's, his reptilian pupils narrowed so much they are naught but paper-thin slits of incandescent fury. The yellow irises have acquired a bloody-red sheen that sings coldly with the prospect of murder. Worse still is Chase's handsome, thin-lipped mouth, not so handsome anymore; it is pulled into an awful caricature of a jack-o'-lantern, a wide grin filled to the brim with jagged fangs that gleam wetly with saliva.

"I'm s-sorry."

Something in Chase snaps and the roar he unleashes shakes the ground, tearing it apart at the seams. The rock quarry rumbles with hundreds of avalanches and it's a miracle no one is squashed into bloody visceral smears. In the blink of an eye, Hannibal is up and away, gliding into the bright blue beyond on his bird's back, while Wuya scarpers from the scene of earthy carnage, aided by the one or two Shen Gong Wu she does have. With the intent of taking flight and fleeing somewhere, anywhere out of Chase's sight, Jack takes off sprinting and, as a result, saves his own life. Within inches of living flesh, the helipack between Jack's thin shoulders is torn to shreds by massive Draconian claws. Better that than his entire torso. Wrestling free of the constricting straps, Jack shrugs the now-useless contraption to the ground and runs like hell; he is at the mercy of an ancient immortal warrior who can shape-shift into a menacing humanoid dragon. Whatever chance Jack stands at surviving this deadly game of cat and mouse is slimmer than the odds of Chase taking up ballet and wearing a frilly pink tutu.

Dimly, amid the chaos, there comes the single plaintive cry of: "Dojo! No! We have to go back! Chase will tear Spicer to shreds!"

But the slender dragon has already enlarged to his full-size form and taken to the air, fearing for the lives of his four charges. The back of Omi's tunic is clenched in his jaws, Clay and Raimundo clasped in his forepaws while Kimiko, seated on his back, tangles her fingers in his yellow mane and hopes to high heaven she isn't shaken loose by all the turbulence.

"Dojo, please! We have to help him!"

Neither Jack nor Chase hear the four simultaneous cries of disbelief and cold fear when one of the monks finally tears himself free of Dojo's grasp, drops twenty feet into the death-trap chasm, and chases after the hunter and the prey.

And so it comes to be: Chase Young, revered idol of the self-dubbed Evil Boy Genius, Jack Spicer, is going to run the boy into the ground, kill the youth in a fit of rage, and tear his sickly-pale throat out with sharp Draconian teeth. Jack is only minutes away from trapping himself in a dead-end gorge where he will turn and face what can only be assured as his inevitable death.

Omi, Xiaolin Dragon of the Water, will witness it all.

* * *

><p>This is done in present tense rather than past tense because it signifies an event that has already happened—like a flashback, almost. The next chapter shall revert back to past tense again. Feel free to point out mistakes.<p>

Oh, yeah, and I forgot to mention last chapter, there will be an oft-used plot device cropping up in this story. Bear with it, if you would. Ta.

Sorry it's late, by the way; my internet connection went on the fritz. Here: have another chapter.


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

In the twilight, under a sky awash with fiery reds and oranges, the hills around the Xiaolin temple appeared to be the arched spines of great sleeping dragons, their scales purple-black grass undulating in the warm breeze. But Master Fung was interested in only one dragon at present, and he scanned the darkening sky for any sign of him carrying the four Xiaolin Dragons-in-training home to safety. The sun had long ago dipped below the horizon line, the sky darkened to a deep inky blue, when he finally spied a rapidly encroaching speck among the stars that elongated into a serpentine form as it got closer. When Master Fung exited the great hall to greet his returning students and Dojo, he was horrified to discover them all in a state of shock, and Omi suffering under a fit of most uncharacteristic distress.

"Master...Master Fung..." he choked out, almost falling to his knees before Master Fung could stoop with a speed that belied his arthritic knees and catch the young monk by the arm.

"Omi, good heavens, what on earth has happened?" He enquired, worry creasing his brow. Omi merely whimpered and buried his face in the crook of Master Fung's arm, trembling with exhaustion and, perhaps, fear. Wetness quickly seeped through the fabric of Master Fung's robes where Omi's head lay. A quick once over told Master Fung that, including Omi, all monks were present and accounted for, and none of them seemed to be seriously hurt—cuts and bruises here and there which was to be expected—but all were a delicate shade of sickly green, as if violently ill. Kimiko was unnaturally quiet and wracked with violent tremors, her irises utterly swamped with pupil and darting about restlessly; Raimundo seemed to be having difficulty standing without swaying and he was clenching the Amulet of Nezha so tightly in his left fist his knuckles had blanched; Clay had a dead-looking faraway expression that looked quite out of sorts on his young, usually cheerful face. Master Fung paled, fearing the worst.

"What has happened, young ones?"

Dojo, unscathed but visibly shaken by some terrible sight to which Master Fung had yet to become privy, returned to his usual size and crawled up the Temple Master's leg to reach his neck, where he curled up and lay deathly still, damp with sweat and shedding scales like leaves.

"S-spicer...Spicer croaked it," the dragon whispered into Master Fung's ear with an air of one who has failed in upholding his sworn duty to serve and protect. "O-omi...Omi s-saw it all."

Master Fung's eyes widened, but he maintained his calm, comforting countenance as he gently pried Omi from the front of his robe and placed a firm, gentle hand on his shoulder to guide him. He extended his other arm to gather Kimiko, Raimundo and Clay to him and usher them into the temple.

"Inside my young ones. Medicine, a calming draught of tea I think, and sleep. You may tell me everything come morning."

* * *

><p>"...Chase was furious," Dojo recounted quietly as he lay quite listlessly on the ground before Master Fung, though he shook every now and then with nerves.<p>

"Because Jack thwarted him in a showdown?"

"I dunno what the kid did. One minute it was him and Kimiko neck and neck, we didn't know who was gonna win, then the next Chase is right there outta nowhere. Seconds later he goes down like a buck shot through the chest and Jack trips over him. Kimmy wins the showdown and then Chase recovers from his fall and all hell breaks loose."

Master Fung considered this and firmly pushed a small saucer of tea mixed with huangjiu in front of Dojo who lapped up some of the liquid with lizard-like flickers of his tongue. The little dragon sighed and appreciated the dull burn of alcohol he'd not sampled for many decades. He wasn't a great drinker, never had been and, despite the occurrences of the day, probably never would be; he'd never much liked the taste. Still, what with all that had happened to the Spicer boy, Dojo figured he owed it to the Goth's memory to drink in his name.

"To Jack Spicer," he murmured, mostly to himself, but Master Fung nodded in affirmation.

Upon treating the young monks' superficial wounds and giving them tea laced with a gentle herbal sedative that guaranteed a dreamless sleep, Master Fung had personally seen them all to bed and had stayed by Omi's side in particular until the little monk's frequent bouts of tears had tapered off and he'd slipped into the blissful oblivion of slumber. Master Fung had then retired to the meditation hall with Dojo slung around his shoulders and began to coax at least some of the story from the depressed dragon.

"What happened then Dojo?"

The dragon's face crumpled, his snout wrinkling as he was forced to relive unpleasant memories.

"Wuya and Bean got the heck outta there. Chase was flipping out big time and it looked like he was gonna reduce the whole place to rubble. I didn't see what happened to Jack next cuz I super-sized and grabbed the kids but I guess he started running. Gods above, what else could he do? He didn't stand a chance, poor kid..."

"No, he didn't." Master Fung agreed sorrowfully. Jack Spicer was, technically, Heylin and therefore the enemy, but the elder monk would never in a thousand years have sentenced him to death at the hands of an angry Chase Young.

"The quarry was come coming down around our ears; I didn't think we had time to mount up and ride out so I had Omi in my teeth, Rai and Clay in my hands, and since I was standing under Kimmy when I super-sized she was on my back. I started on up but then Omi starts yelling that we have to go help Jack, we had to go back or Chase would tear him to shreds...he wouldn't stop yelling..."

The dragon heaved a sigh laden with shame and regret then plunged his snout into the alcohol-spiked tea and inhaled the healthy portion all in one go. He emitted a squeaky hiccup as a single fat teardrop trickled down his scaly face to plink gently on the ground. Master Fung felt compunction for having to dwell on the gruesome subject when all he dearly wanted, for Dojo's sake, was to tuck the little dragon into bed and let him forget the day's tragedies. But when a snake strikes, one does not suck out the poison in increments but all at once, and thus Master Fung had further questions to ask.

"You did not do as Omi wished, did you Dojo?"

"Well, n-no my first priority was to get the kids outta there so I kept goin' up and ignoring Omi even though he was begging me to go back, that we had to help the Spicer kid. But then I felt Omi wasn't squirming no more and I saw he'd wormed his way out of his tunic and dropped back into the quarry and was pelting after Chase and Jack.

"We lost sight of him for a bit and we rose up above the quarry mess and circled around a bit until Rai spotted him with the Falcon's Eye. We got closer and he's just standing there all pale and unmoving on the edge of this huge blocked-in crater thing staring down Chase..." Dojo swallowed a sob and continued in a strangled voice, more tears splashing on the ground to join the first, "Chase is...he's...Oh Gods, he's tearing and hacking and chewing at something against the rock wall and there's blood everywhere and it was horrible, just horrible. Then he senses we're there or something and then he t-turns around and c-comes after us looking a-as if t-to say we w-were next on the m-menu. C-clay lassoed Omi and w-we c-came straight b-back to the...the t-temple."

Dojo lost it then, breaking down and bawling, wringing his tail with his tiny clawed paws. Master Fung hastened to pick him up and administer slow soothing strokes along the length of Dojo's back.

"Did Omi say anything when he was back among the rest of you?"

"N-no, we d-didn't...didn't speak all the w-way h-home. Oh M-master Fung, s'all m-my fault! I p-pretty...pretty much killed the p-poor k-kid. I-if I...If I'd g-gone after him when Omi first said we m-might have b-been able to save S-spicer."

"You were protecting the young monks," Master Fung said resolutely, voice low and reassuring. "You were doing your duty as their guardian—" but he was interrupted by a miserable howl from Dojo, who was now dribbling liberal amounts of snot and tears onto Master Fung's robes, even as he attempted to halt the flow.

"I c-coulda kept a b-better grip on O-omi! I sh-shoulda known that...t-that he'd get free and g-go after Ch-chase! Now he's s-seen Spicer t-torn apart b-before his eyes and he's gonna b-be screwed up f-for life! I've r-ruined his innocence, Fung! H-how can I e-ever make up f-for th-that?"

"Innocence plays in the backyard of ignorance," quoted Master Fung quietly, never faltering in his steady petting of Dojo's scales. "Though perhaps it was by a cruel and untimely fashion that Omi had his innocence taken, it was inevitable; it had to happen eventually or else he could never grow and learn as one must when they age."

The little dragon's sobs gradually tapered off and he was silent but for shuddering breaths and a smattering of hiccups; it seemed he was over the worst of his outward display of grief and regret.

"I say this now and I'll say it as many times as I need to, Dojo, what happened today was not your fault. You did your duty looking after the young ones out in the field, keeping them out of harm's way when they could have been crushed by rock-fall, and afterwards you returned them safely to the temple. I cannot ask of you anymore than that, Dojo."

Dojo sniffled once and nodded weakly, showing he understood, and then slumped, limply, in Master Fung's arms. With a single sad sigh, the elder monk stood to depart for his sleeping quarters; he would first put Dojo to bed with water and painkillers at his bedside to treat the dragon's hangover when he awoke, and then he'd go and put himself to bed for a few hours rest. After all, come morning, he had several more snake bites from which poison needed to be extracted.

* * *

><p>Fave moment in the series ever? When Master Fung's eyes bug out upon hearing the Heylin Seed is alive and wreaking havoc. Dear God, I almost cracked a rib. Anyhoo, Fung makes a great therapist and I love him in all his wisely, wrinkly glory. If I ever get a desk calendar, Imma name it after him.<p>

INTERNEEEEEETZ...I'm not addicted, I swear. I just have a few dependency issues. –shifty eyes-


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Raimundo's Shoku robes seemed too big for him as he slumped gracelessly in his chair, on-edge and twitchy, much like he was after a particularly bad nightmare, his hands restlessly fidgeting with anything they could find simply for the task of keeping his hands busy. In contrast, Kimiko was poised and her expression calm, but Master Fung could feel heat radiating off her in shimmering waves as an internal fury raged behind her eyes, but at whom the anger was directed, the elder monk could not guess. Clay was stoic, his body language stiff and tense; his ten-gallon hat was perched so as to shadow his eyes, making his expression difficult to read, but Master Fung would have wagered that the same lifeless expression the cowboy had worn yesterday was making a grim reappearance. Omi, like Kimiko, was quiet and composed, seated with his legs drawn up under his small body, and hands tucked neatly into the sleeves of his robes. Nevertheless, Master Fung had never seen him look so drawn and gaunt, his skin almost as ghostly white as the late Spicer boy's, and it distressed him immensely.

They were all seated around the table at which the young monks usually ate their meals, a light breakfast of rice congee with scrambled eggs, fresh fruit, and tea before them. All the bowls sat untouched before the young teens, and Master Fung normally would not tolerate food wasted. However, upon having seen Clay—a boy who could normally ingest half his weight in food—spear a piece of seasonal melon with a fork, lift it to his lips, then turn deathly pale and think better of it, looking nauseous, Master Fung thought it inappropriate to scold them. Nevertheless he gently coaxed them to eat; he did not want any of them feeling faint later from lack of food.

"No, Master Fung," Omi responded quietly, voice hoarse but tone respectful. "I think it might not be wise to put food in our bellies when they are already full of caterpillars and binding themselves in bows."

"Full of butterflies, Omi..."

"Tying themselves in knots, little guy..."

The corrections that came from Raimundo and Clay, respectively, sounded despondent and hollow. Kimiko merely shifted in her seat and said nothing but her hands clenched into fists, nails making neat little crescent moons in her palms.

"I understand that what happened yesterday has greatly upset you all—" Master Fung kindly ignored his students' synchronized flinches "—but I respectfully ask that you remain here at this table with me and participate in a little group therapy."

He was awarded with appraising silence.

"Needless to say, you are welcome to keep your thoughts to yourself, but it is my dearest wish that you speak your mind, young ones."

Raimundo was first to speak, unleashing a weary sigh as he did so.

"So what, you want us to just talk about yesterday?"

"If that is what's necessary, Raimundo."

"What's there to talk about?" Kimiko whispered, her words seething with silent anger, and everyone turned to look at her. "Chase mauled Jack. End of story."

"Kimiko..."

"No!" she shouted, rage finally spilling over as she stood and slammed her hand down on the tabletop, the violent action upsetting a few cups of cold tea. Dojo spooked and took cover in Master Fung's sleeve. "It's his fault! It's Jack's own goddamn fault that he was torn to shreds!

"What the hell was he thinking," she continued, starting to pace back and forth, voice rising in volume. "It's been like this since the beginning. Us going after the Wu and Jack being this stupid little mama's boy running after us, wanting to play World Domination, with his stupid big mouth and even bigger ego, getting in way over his stupid so-called genius head! What did he think would happen, that this would just go on hunky-dory like it used to with just the four of us battling it out with him and pathetic ghostly Wuya, that we could continue being silly kids playing Save the World from Jack Spicer forever? Didn't he think that things would change when Chase got involved and _he_ was powerful enough to wipe us all out in one fell swoop even _with_ our powers? What chance did Jack have, the little idiot with his stupid fucking useless robots?"

At this, the enraged girl swung blindly, her knuckles making contact with a solid wooden beam. She continued hitting it until the skin split and blood began to trickle down her wrist, punctuating after each word with a vicious strike to the temple support.

"Why couldn't the pigheaded jerk just stay away? Didn't we make it plain he shouldn't come around anymore? Didn't we beat it into him that he wasn't fit to keep up with any of us anymore?"

Then she let out a wordless cry, devolving into her native Japanese, and the fist she was abusing against the wooden beam lit up with fire. It was at this point that Raimundo overcame his shock, leapt to his feet and restrained her, wrapping an arm around her waist and gripping her slim wrist in his other hand. Kimiko struggled for a moment before going limp; she sagged against the young man who held her, smoke rising from her extinguished fist.

"I did not know you felt so deeply," Master Fung confessed as Kimiko sank to the floor, taking Raimundo with her who was now patting her shoulder and murmuring softly. The elder monk could not deny that he deeply distraught at the sight of Kimiko's vehement outburst. From the sleeve of his robe Dojo poked his head, eying the young woman with profound sadness. Omi was aghast, mouth open in shock, and he seemed to be struggling for words. Before he could find the ones he was looking for, however, Clay spoke up.

"When we first came here, Master Fung, sir," he started wearily, "we were practically little'uns, still just kids. An' we don't blame you for bringin' us here so young or nothin', what with all the teachin' you have to do an all, but it's a mighty scary thing to be twelve and told you got the fate of the world in your hands."

"Even when Wuya was with him, Spi—_Jack_ was just the kinda guy you couldn't really be afraid of," Raimundo clarified from the floor, his arm around Kimiko's shoulders and one hand rubbing up and down her back. "Like yeah, at first we freaked when he got hold of some of the Wu but I don't think any of us were seriously worried about him actually having what it took to take over the world."

"Like Kimiko said," Clay continued, "havin' Jack around an' screwin' up an' all made it all like it was just some big game of keep-away we were playin'. He made us forget what a big responsibility we had in preventin' ten-thousand years a' darkness, and we needed that. At least until we got old enough to accept our responsibility for what it were, that is."

"Then it was like, after I got my head on straight and got out from under Wuya's thumb after that one time, we just...didn't need him anymore. He'd done his job of getting us over the "fate of the world in our hands" hang up, and we were good to go. We abandoned him—levelled up and left him behind—even after all he did to help us out," Raimundo finished with a troubled expression on his face, like the truth within his words had just caught up to him and he didn't particularly like what he'd said.

"And now he's gone," Kimiko muttered, knees drawn up under her chin and bright blue eyes shuttered. "Just like that."

"Just like that," Clay echoed mournfully.

They were silent and Master Fung watched them carefully. This was progress; they were airing their feelings and removing the poison from their wounds. This was very good.

"Well I'm all for going out and wiping Chase Young's sorry ass off the face of the earth," Raimundo supplied darkly, the fist that wasn't splayed across Kimiko's back clenching with righteous anger. "Who's with me?"

But that was very bad.

"Y'know, I think Mr. Young could stand havin' a lesson on manners taught to him, or two," Clay agreed with a cold smirk that had Dojo practically quaking in his scaling skin.

And that was very very bad.

"My friends..." Omi started, looking baffled and concerned but he was drowned out by Kimiko, who had slowly risen to her feet, Raimundo giving her something of a wide berth as he sensed the hate radiating from her slim form.

"I'll never forgive that bastard for what he did to Jack," she hissed, her eyes burning with the sort of fire that ravaged the land indiscriminately and left in its wake only desolation and charred bodies.

Holy Mother of Dashi, this was the bad cherry on top of the steaming pile of so-bad-it-doesn't-bear-thinking-about.

"My friends..." Omi tried again, sounding a little more desperate, but this time he was interrupted by a fairly alarmed Master Fung.

"My young monks, an eye for an eye makes the world blind! What can you possibly hope to accomplish by enacting this mindless vengeance upon Chase Young?"

"Well, for starters it will definitely make me feel better," Raimundo growled, cracking his knuckles with awful, audible pops. "It's what Jack would have wanted and I'm all for avenging him."

"Raimun—!"

"The way I see it, sir," Clay drawled dangerously as he stood up, "we'll only be doin' a job we were gonna do in the future, anyway. Might as well get 'er done now an' keep even more innocent people from dyin' when they get on the wrong side of Chase Young."

"Cla—!"

"Yeah," Kimiko chipped in, slightly breathless with suppressed emotion. "If Chase would kill Jack for simply mucking up a stupid showdown for him and inflicting a weeny bit of damage that didn't even last two seconds afterwards, what would he do if he thought we were getting strong enough to stop him once and for all? He'd kill us all and raze the temple to the ground!"

"Kimi—!"

"You are talking as anyone from the Heylin side might, my children!" Master Fung cried, now truly distressed as he watched an almost tangible dark haze descend upon three of his students. "Your anger and grief have clouded your minds—!"

"WOULD EVERYONE PLEASE BE STOPPING THE TALK OF THE VENGEANCE WHILE I AM TRYING TO SPEAK?"

Stunned silence.

"...thank you," Omi coughed embarrassedly, hiding his flushed cheeks briefly behind the sleeve of his robes. He was standing on his chair; he'd climbed onto it in order to make himself heard properly after having failed to capture the attention of any one person in the room.

"What I am trying to figure out," he said, taking advantage of the silence while his fellow monks and Dojo continued to stare at him in shock. "Is why we are even talking of whacking Chase Young down, and why everyone is under the impression that he sent Jack Spicer to the opal fence in the sky!"

"Omi, what are you talking about?" Raimundo cried, recovering enough to respond but not enough to actually call Omi out on his butchering of the English slang-uage. "You saw what happened to Jack! Chase tore him to pieces before your eyes, remember?"

"How did we ever come to that conclusion?" Omi asked, incredulously. "Chase didn't kill Jack Spicer."

"Oh Omi," Dojo wailed softly so only Master Fung could hear him. "I've seen this before; he's repressing the memories too horrible to recount!"

"Omi," Kimiko said, a great deal more gently than Raimundo. "We all saw—" she paused and shuddered "—we all saw Chase chewing on something and...and we all saw that blood..."

"No. That blood did not belong to Jack Spicer."

"Then who, pardner?"

"The blood was Chase's own," said Omi with quiet conviction, closing his eyes and crossing his arms. "Jack Spicer was swallowed up by the earth itself before Chase Young could harm even a single hair on his head."

* * *

><p>So say Jack, Omi, Raimundo, Clay and Kimiko were 14, 11, 13, 15, and 13 respectively when the show very first started (and those are complete fabrications on my part), then just over two years passed in the show's duration until the end, plus the two year time skip before this story begins, everyone's approximate age would be...<p>

Jack: 18, Omi: 15, Raimundo: 17, Clay: 19, Kimiko: 17

Whacking [Chase Young] down = Smacking [that bitch] up. Opal fence should be easy to figure out. God, I adore Omi. And yes, futha-muckers, I do take credit for creating the word "slang-uage."


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

"_The blood was Chase's own," said Omi with quiet conviction, closing his eyes and crossing his arms. "Jack Spicer was swallowed up by the earth itself before Chase Young could harm even a single hair on his head."_

Following Omi's claim, there was a markedly pregnant pause. Dojo quite eloquently ended it.

"Say what?"

"I don't believe it," Raimundo added, shaking his head in disbelief. "Omi you gotta be messed up in the head or something. That blood couldn't have all come from Chase..."

"I will reiterate, friends, the only blood Jack Spicer ever split was from his nose and mouth, and forgive me if I'm wrong—which I rarely am—but those are not wounds enough to kill even a weakling like him."

Raimundo looked like he was going to argue further but was stopped when Master Fung put a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"I think, perhaps," he intoned solemnly as he gestured for his students to be seated around the table, "it is best that we allow Omi to tell his side of the story, from the beginning."

* * *

><p>"Dojo! No! We have to go back! Chase will tear Spicer to shreds!" Omi can't help but scream as he struggles to free himself from the dragon's jaws. From this height he can see the bright flash of napalm-orange that is Spicer running for his life, followed swiftly by the hulking dark mass that is Chase, even through the choking clouds of dirt and dust that the dragon-lord's anger has thrown into the atmosphere. Just below him, Omi can see Clay and Raimundo dangling from Dojo's paws, wide-eyed and clinging on for dear life. Somewhere above him he can hear Kimiko praying fervently in her native language. At least...he assumes she's praying.<p>

"Dojo, please! We have to help him!" But Dojo remains deaf to his pleas and Omi knows then that if he doesn't get free now and go to Jack's aid, the young man will be left alone to face Chase's terrible wrath. Such a thing will certainly end in Spicer's death and the young monk can't allow that because he considers Jack a friend: a friend on the wrong side of this battle of theirs, a friend with a regrettable penchant for pursuing evil, a friend who mistreats them and whom they mistreat in turn, of course, but a friend nevertheless. It doesn't take long before Omi realises that Dojo's grip on him is restricted to his tunic only, and though it pains him a little to mistreat his precious sash, he yanks it open and slithers out of his upper garment with ease.

Ignoring the cries of his fellow monks and Dojo, Omi races, bare-chested, through the death-trap that was once a rock quarry, avoiding boulders which threaten to smear him across the gravel underfoot should he make but a single misstep. Allowing his tiger instincts to move beyond the boundaries of his body and outwards, Omi catches the tail-end of Jack and Chase's signature energies—their _chi_—rapidly moving away from the rock quarry until they almost fade from his perception. Desperate to keep them within his "sight", Omi chases after them until he's left the quarry far behind. Instead he's now running across horribly uneven ground threaded through with the roots of monstrously tall pines that tower above him like giants. At the speed Jack is running in his adrenaline-fuelled panic, just fast enough to keep him just out of Chase's range, and the amount of distance between Omi and the former two, Omi has no chance of catching up to them. He veers sharply to the right, having already mapped out the terrain ahead using the foresight technique taught to the monks not long ago by Master Fung. He's heading towards the bend in a nearby wide, shallow river that carves its way through the boreal forest. He can sense that Jack is on his way to that same river, albeit via a long, winding route which he's clearly using in the hope of shaking Chase off his tail. With any luck Omi will arrive in time to intercept them.

Panting slightly, Omi arrives at the water's edge. He's standing on the inward curve of the river, which is naught more that a pebbly beach, stark and grey next to the shimmering water. Further downriver the beach suddenly rises up into a sizable cliff upon which more pines stand like grim sentinels; on the opposite bank there lies a beach similar to that under Omi's feet. Omi casts out his instincts again like a net, hoping it will catch the fish he seeks within its broad range. In moments, Omi's eyes widen as he knows he's made a grave miscalculation. Without hesitation he takes off towards the cliff—_far away, too far away_!—his ears catching the unmistakable sound of footfalls and laboured breath, of a rampaging beast whose frequent roars send birds flurrying into the sky so as to make feathery, flapping clouds that speed away on the wind.

"JACK!"

Omi's scream does nothing to halt the inevitable and, seconds later, Jack Spicer hurtles over the edge of the cliff and lands heavily in the shallow water with an explosive splash. He doesn't get up again. Omi abruptly halts, his feet sending up a spray of gravel as he stares in gut-wrenching horror at the thin, leather-clad body as the current catches it and slowly pulls it further downstream.

_No_, he thinks, his mind frozen, his thoughts so sluggish he has to shake his head in an attempt to get them moving again. _No, Jack Spicer cannot be dead. He can't!_

The pale, watery sunlight is blocked out for mere milliseconds behind him and it is warning just enough to Omi who only just manages to dodge the vicious back-handed swipe Chase attempts to deliver to the young monk's ribs. Jumping backwards onto a large, sturdy boulder at the water's edge, Omi uses it as a stand from which to launch himself at Chase.

"Kaijin Charm, Tsunami Strike, Water!"

Unbalanced by his previous manoeuvre, Chase is caught off guard and Omi's water-fueled kick to the side of his snout sends him flying a good twenty feet or so upriver, crushing the trunks of several trees under his enormous scaly form. Taking his eyes off Chase for only a moment, Omi feverishly scans downriver for Jack's body. If he cannot save the his life, he will at least do Jack the honour of salvaging his body and giving it a proper burial as opposed to letting Chase desecrate the remains as he might see fit. To his dismay, however, Jack is nowhere to be found in the water and Omi is about to dive into the river and scour the bottom for the youth's body when he sees something dragging itself onto the opposite bank far downriver. Jack!

The twinge of his tiger instincts at that exact moment is the only thing Omi can credit to his survival when Chase launches his next attack—though he will doubtless attribute it to his skill and fighting prowess when recounting the tale to his fellow monks later on. Instead of dashing the young monk to pieces, Chase only manages to knock him about fifty feet away into a nearby tree before throwing himself into the water, snorting and snarling, steam rising from his super-heated flanks, and charging towards Jack's struggling figure. The young monk, rubbing his sore shoulder where it had made painful contact with unforgiving wood, is left otherwise unscathed. After all, Spicer is the target of Chase's rage, not Omi.

Miraculously, Spicer's body has enough left in it to allow the boy one last surge of adrenaline, which he uses to scramble up off the bank and hurtle towards the trees. It will not last, however, and Omi recognizes that this is his last chance to get Jack Spicer out of this mess alive. Using foresight once more, Omi quickly assesses the terrain ahead, the nine dots on his forehead glowing bright with exertion. Harnessing his element, the young monk runs across the surface of the running water, his footfalls barely making splashes. Up ahead, Jack Spicer has plunged himself into a ravine carved out of a sheer rock face, yet another abandoned quarry, but this one is unlike the other; nature has had its tempestuous way with it, making the way treacherous with fallen rock, and it's riddled with false escape routes that lead only to dead ends. Omi is spurred on when he senses Jack halt abruptly once more, having possibly tripped over some obstacle, and it's a good thing the ravine is narrow and difficult to navigate or Chase would have been on him in that very second and thus would have been the end of Jack Spicer.

Instead of charging in after his targets, Omi bounds to the top of the rock face with several nimble leaps. Following Jack's chi—he does not want to follow Chase's and risk losing the young man's if he's to somehow manage to get away for Chase on his own after all—he runs until there's a stitch in his side and he can barely breath; he cannot fathom how Jack is feeling, seeing as he is by far the worst off of the two. Omi's heart nearly stops when he feels Jack halt for a third and final time, Chase's chi stopping just short of Jack's. This is it. Jack can run no more, and unless he can distract Chase for just a few moments more, Omi is going to be too late. Omi is just about to despair when..._there_! he internally shouts, finally spying a great rocky depression, about a hundred feet deep and that same measure in circumference at the top; the rock walls slant inward diagonally, and the ground space is perhaps fifty feet in diameter. It is from here that two recognizable chi stream to create an almost tangible miasma. Omi gives an involuntary shudder as he runs toward it, thinking about how this could be Spicer's grave should he not arrive in time. He knows not that this was once the place where great machines had done their best to carve something valuable from the unyielding earth and failed, nor does he care, because, at last, he's approached the lip of the immense crater.

A blood-curdling roar echoes violently from the vast pit, the sound making the young monk fall back with his hands clapped over his ringing ears, but nevertheless Omi is close enough to see what's going on. His blood nearly freezes solid. Chase is already charging towards Jack, full tilt, mouth full of vicious teeth open wide as if he's going to swallow Jack whole, but as if the dragon-lord would be so merciful. Omi's not going to reach him in time and the knowledge of that makes him so cold he's certain now that his own element is striving to kill him. He opens his mouth...to say what., he knows not, but when he thinks back on it in the future, he's sure it would have been an incoherent primal noise given voice simply to draw Chase's attention from the frail boy he's about to crush into the dust.

Then suddenly, inexplicably, the pale youth below looks up and happens to catch Omi's eyes with his own, and Omi is introduced to the unholy sensation of his heart seemingly rising into his throat. Omi stares down at the creature inhabiting the body of a boy about to die in a most messy, excruciating way, and a creature that is most definitely not-Jack stares blankly back. Omi knows that whatever it is inside Jack's body is not Jack, because the Spicer boy is a vibrant clash of colours that sparks energy and enthusiasm no matter how dark it is around him. Spicer is bright and dramatic, brilliant and goofy, rude, witty, brash, persistent, fragile, loudmouthed, cowardly, frequently idiotic, most excellent—a thousand other adjectives Omi can barely dream of. Spicer's an eccentric nonconformist who's oddly enigmatic for all that he wears his shockingly resilient heart on his sleeve. Jack Spicer is lively; he's alive in a way Omi admires and it's the reason he counts Jack as a friend, because though Omi's no miser, he's not stupid enough to let something so shiny slip between his teeny tiny fingers.

What stares back at Omi is not Jack Spicer, and Omi knows it's not Jack Spicer because its red eyes are cold and dead-looking rather than the dazzling embers that spark with genius and childlike wonder. The look in not-Jack's eyes is terrifying; it seems to suck any and all joy from the very marrow of Omi's bones, and for a moment he wonders if this is what the people who commit suicide feel and if it is then he cannot fault them their course of action. It's the look a man gets when he knows he's about to die by the hands of that which he's loved and cherished, only for it to betray him. It's the look of something that's given up all right it has to life, instead choosing to sit there, unmoving, while something comes along to pick it up it its jaws and shake it around until nothing is left but grisly shreds of gore. It's the look of something that doesn't desire to exist any longer.

In the milliseconds it has taken for the boys to stare one another down, Chase has gotten closer, and that desire is looking to be the most inescapable outcome. As quickly as it had sprung to life, the primal noise dies a premature death in Omi's throat and instead he croaks out a single word which not-Jack reads from the simple motion of his lips.

"Jack..."

And just like that, not-Jack is Jack once more. The life floods back into his eyes, but at a moment far too late. Facing the monster charging towards him at the speed of a freight train, Jack screams, and it's a raw, unearthly noise composed of nothing but sheer terror which sounds entirely unlike his normal girly shrieks of fear, and throws his arms up in a useless attempt to shield his frail, battered form. Omi looks away, hands coming up to cover his eyes; he won't—no—he _can't_ watch this. Chase emits another hideous bellow, quickly followed up with deafening snarling and scratching, and then...silence. Omi doesn't dare look, because he knows there's going to be very visible bloody evidence of the brutal act Chase has just committed. He can still hear Jack's noises of distress ringing in his ears—No, wait, that's not just in his head. Omi slowly peeks out from between his hands, not noticing his fingers come away from his face wet and salty, and gapes.

Far below, Chase, still in his dragon form, sits, hunched over, only a foot and a half away from Spicer's mewling, quivering, but very much alive form. Beside him a vicious spike of metal thrusts out of the ground into the air at a very peculiar angle, and it is clear from the blood on the ground and Chase's leg that it has lacerated the gastrocnemius muscle. Perhaps this is what has prompted the roar that Omi had heard and assumed was Chase's way of exalting his triumph at having finally cornered his prey. Strangely enough, Chase is silent now, intensely examining the gleaming metal protrusion and his own leg as his super-accelerated healing already works at knitting the muscle back together. Then, Omi watches as Chase turns those cold, golden eyes onto Jack Spicer, and instantly Omi can see why he would do so.

Seemingly out of nowhere, a grim metal cage has sprouted from the rock wall behind Jack, utterly encasing him in a roundish enclosure constructed with thin stems of what Omi assumes is iron. The structure would not be unlike a giant globular spider web had it not possessed deadly metre-long thorns jutting outwards, a crude defence system. Jack himself sits in the centre of it, his eyes screwed shut and hands over his mouth, rocking back and forth in mindless fright. Omi cannot even begin to guess where it came from, but he counts it as a blessing because, unbelievably, it has caused Chase's insurmountable anger of mere seconds ago to have melted away to nothing. Now, in his human form, Chase is crawling towards Jack's dangerous enclosure—and how he can do that with a semi-ruined leg looking as graceful as a stalking panther is anyone's guess—but Omi cannot possibly read his expression from this distance. He dares not move from his position on the edge of the depression lest he set Chase off again and put Jack in jeopardy. Instead he watches as Chase presses a hand to the cage, mindful of the spikes, and pushes against it firmly, testing its strength; it holds.

Next Chase seems to get Jack's attention, starts talking to him but about what Omi cannot possibly hear, but he sees Jack take notice of the cage, look baffled and then return his attention to the immortal before him. Jack is staring at Chase with eyes that are definitely alive—not those horrible dead things with which he'd stared at Omi—but the most guarded the young monk has ever seen, like shutters have come down over the immeasurable ruby depths which could usually be read like a book. The entire time Chase is talking to Jack, the Goth does not glance up at Omi again, does not meet his eyes, and it is entirely possibly that Jack had looked right through him before with the eyes that weren't his. It's only when Chase cautiously reaches a hand through a large enough gap in the cage and touches Jack's cheek, his large, powerful hand tenderly cupping the pale skin, that the youth reacts violently.

Scrambling back as if scalded by the touch, Jack forcefully slaps the hand away from his face and starts screaming at Chase. Omi can't quite make out the words, if indeed there are any at all, but there's a lot of anger there, anger, hurt, and denial but, surprisingly, not very much hate. The young man's thin back is pressed against the rock wall behind him, physically trying to put as much distance as possibly between himself and the dragon-lord that had, up until a few seconds ago, been trying to kill him. Chase is on his feet now, his leg finally healed; his stance is not overtly angry but he does not appear pleased. He seemed to be saying things to Jack, perhaps something to calm him down or to get him to stop screaming, but why he wasn't using his abundance of dark magic to do that, Omi couldn't fathom.

It happens when Chase braces himself and starts pushing at the bars of Jack's cage with the intent to pry them apart to get to the still-screaming Jack. It happens when Omi leaps into action, sprinting closer with his short legs, and prepares himself to summon his element and send a great meteor of ice hurtling towards Chase at an angle where it won't also hit and possibly hurt Jack. Neither the Xiaolin monk nor the Heylin warrior come close to achieving their goals because it happens; the rock behind Jack ripples with a dull, metallic sheen and the young man, without warning, simply sinks backwards into the solid wall of rock behind him, as if it were nothing more than a mirage, and vanishes out of sight.

Chase freezes. Omi freezes. They stare uncomprehendingly at the place where Jack had just been standing in unison, closer in thought and deed than they've ever been previously. Then Chase reacts. With a roar that is becoming entirely too predictable for Omi's liking, Chase transforms again and starts tearing at the cage-like structure, this time not caring that he cuts and bloodies himself on the brutal metal spines. When he reaches the rock wall, he keeps on clawing and slashing mindlessly as if he thinks Jack is buried just beneath the surface and by ripping it away he could expose the pale youth to the light of day once more.

"Dojo! There he is!"

"I see him! Hang on kid, we're coming!"

"Omi!"

Omi does not react. He can hear nothing over the blood roaring in his head nor see anything past the dim haze that has fallen across his vision. What does this mean? What's happened to Jack? Is he in danger? The last thought is what spurs Omi from paralysis and he's about to start forward when Chase abandons his ostensibly futile mission and starts thundering towards Omi. Before the young monk can react to Chase's sudden change in directive, he feels something jerk around his navel and suddenly he's airborne.

"Ah gotcha, pardner!" he hears shouted above him and he looks up to see Clay seated on Dojo's back with a rope in his hand that is, _apparently_, Omi thinks as he disconnectedly joins the dots, _attached to me._

Heedlessly, the giant apex predator below them roars and tramples the earth underfoot as Omi is pulled aboard Dojo's back. As they flee the scene of Chase's renewed fury, Kimiko is the first to envelope him in a near-crushing hug.

"Omi," she murmurs, her lower lip trembling. "That...that blood...Jack...?"

Unable to speak, Omi merely shakes his head, eyes screwed tight, and slumps in her slender arms. Overcome by all that has happened, he curls a small fist in the sleeve of her fashionable blouse, and cries until it hurts. The other monks fall into grim silence and Dojo merely swings westward, heading for home.

* * *

><p>Damn it, you fuckers are demanding little buggers. Here, have a long chapter and piss off for a bit. Real life demands my attention too, you know.<p> 


	7. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

"And that, my friends, that is...how it happened," Omi finished somewhat hollowly as he surreptitiously hugged himself.

"So...so Spicer really was swallowed up by the ground?" Clay asked uncertainly, confusion clouding his eyes. Omi nodded grimly.

"Sounds like a bunch of baloney to me," Raimundo muttered but there was no real conviction in his voice and it was clear he was disagreeing just for the sake of it.

"What could do that, Master Fung?" Kimiko laid a hand on the elder monk's arm. He did not look at her nor acknowledge that she'd spoken, only stared into space unseeingly, his brow crinkled with a thoughtful frown.

"So...what?" Raimundo said sullenly, crossing his arms, "We have something else to worry about now besides all the Heylin freaks out there? Some kind of living rock that eats people?"

The four young monks looked to Dojo in askance but the little dragon merely shrugged.

"Don't look at me. If there is such a thing, I haven't heard of it."

"But just because you ain't heard of it don't mean it don't exist..." Clay reasoned.

"...which means a living rock-monster that eats people is entirely possible!" Kimiko finished, her eyes going wide with horror.

"Oh great," snarked Raimundo, throwing his hands in the air. "As if we didn't have enough to worry about—"

"I do not think, Raimundo," Master Fung interjected and everyone turned to look at him, "that we need to contemplate the possibility of carnivorous stone."

"Well isn't that a relief." The Wind-Dragon's tone was sarcastic, but the lightening of his eyes belied the harshness of his words.

"Then, Master Fung, you know what has happened to Jack Spicer?" Omi asked hopefully. Master Fung sighed.

"I have a theory, Omi, and should it prove correct then I must strongly advise that none of you raise your hopes too high, for it is entirely possible that Spicer has, indeed, perished." He stood and folded his hands inside his draping sleeves as he was wont to do. "Follow me young monks, I must show you something that perhaps I should have revealed to you long ago."

Obediently, they all stood and trailed after Master Fung as he departed the dining hall, leading the way into the depths of the temple, where none of the monks ever frequently trod. Bringing up the rear, Omi could not help but think of what Master Fung had said about Jack's fate and wish that Raimundo's theory of man-eating rock was correct, though it made him feel guilty.

At least then it might have devoured Chase Young too.

It was only when they reached the Room of Scrolls did Master Fung stop and turn, waiting until they were assembled all around him before he spoke.

"I must ask, my young Dragons, that you bear patiently with me now. Even should my theory not apply to Jack Spicer or his disappearance, given its slight margin of error, I must impress upon you the importance of the information I am about to give you. Whatever I tell you within this room, young monks, stays within this room. Is that understood?"

Stunned into solemnity by Master Fung's no-nonsense countenance, the four teens bowed their heads and promised. Satisfied, Master Fung gestured for them to enter and, once they'd all filed in, knocked smartly on the wooden frame of the doorway. Where once there had been nothing, a sturdy door of cast iron materialised, like smoke, to fill the empty space. Unbeknownst to them all, they were being watched.

"Don't you think, Beanie," Wuya drawled impatiently, waving a lazy hand to renew the strength of her scrying magick, "That perhaps locating Jack _before_ we find out what's going on with him might be prudent? We can't afford to lose him to Chase."

Hannibal Roy Bean eyed his new partner-in-evil with as much benevolence as a creature with his aptitude for wickedness possibly could and flicked her arm with one vine-like appendage.

"Well, sweetness, you gotta pretty good idea where the boy might be, huh?" he sneered. Wuya said nothing in response and he laughed nastily.

"Don't you worry your pretty little head, Wuya. If we can figure out what's got the pasty-faced scarecrow suddenly exhibitin' some mighty interestin' new talents—or rather spy on the monks until they tell us what's up—then we're that much closer to knowin' where he's skedaddled off to."

"Only if he's still alive," Wuya corrected shortly. Hannibal eyed her in amusement.

"Well I never, you're actually worried about the snivelling little simpleton, aren't you?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Wuya snorted looking utterly disparaging. "I'm only worried that the stupid boy might be already dead, or will die in the time it takes us to find him, and after we've gone through all this unnecessary effort to find out what's happened to him."

Semi-convinced, Hannibal went back to watching the scene flickering across the shallow basin of water upon which Wuya was scrying, his arm...things...idly stroking Ying-Ying's feathers. Wuya, meanwhile, shifted away from the bean, so slightly that the action went unperceived, as if she was repulsed by him. She was, in fact, and the only reason she'd "teamed up with Hannibal"—which really meant that she'd sold her services in magick and treachery to him for about half a millennia—because he'd restored the vast majority of her powers to her in order to wield them in his bidding. Of course, she certainly wasn't going to be achieving world domination anytime soon, but she had a greater scope of her powers now than she had ever had under Chase's watchful eye.

It was only hours after the dragon-lord's hissy fit at the Showdown that Wuya and Hannibal had come across one another, strangely enough the two of them heading for the same destination: the Xiaolin temple. They'd agreed to work together for a time; Hannibal would restore Wuya's magick and, in return, Wuya would spy where even Ying-Ying could not go. The two of them had settled on one of the many grassy hills surrounding the temple, sheltered by a tree bowed from many centuries of strong winds and heavy rainfall, and were now spying on the Xiaolin monks. As they watched, the bald tutor of the Dragons-in-training reached for a smallish scroll shunted behind its larger fellows and reverently blew dust from the yellowed parchment. Then he opened it and scanned it carefully as if making sure the information he sought was indeed scribed on the scroll; the small green dragon seated on his shoulder also took care to read it, blinking slowly with sudden enlightenment.

Unlike the Shen Gong Wu scroll, which dated from Dashi's time and was much younger than this aged relic Master Fung held in his hands, it was not interwoven with enchantments and therefore none of the faded characters moved. Using her magick to magnify the scene, Wuya saw a circle of black ink, divided into four quarters, with a smaller circle at its centre. The four sections were labelled with the traditional Chinese characters for Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water—characters far older than Wuya herself—and coloured in with yellow, pale green, red and blue-black, respectively. Despite the age of the ink, it still seemed to shimmer in the lantern-glow within the temple library.

Wuya and Bean frowned in unison and leaned closer to identify the character in the middle of the other four elements. Wuya audibly gasped and Hannibal's eyes opened wide with surprise then narrowed with appraising greed.

"Well I'll be damned..."

"No, the old fool can't seriously think..."

Upon the silvery-white circle was inscribed the character for metal.

* * *

><p>So apparently I need to stop being bored because I upload new chapters when I'm bored and feel like whoring out my writing for reviews...I'm running out of pre-written chapters. Fuck.<p> 


	8. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

"What do you know, my young monks, about the _Wu Xing_?" asked Master Fung.

"Beg y'pardon, sir?"

Omi thrust his hand into the air and waved it about to get Master Fung's attention. Despite the fact he'd grown an inch or two over the years, even on tip toe with his hand stretched up as high as he could reach, he only just cleared five and a half feet.

"Yes, Omi?"

"They are what are referred to in our time, Master, as the five elements, although a more direct translation would be "movements" or "phases" because they are always in motion. Within every generation there are those born with the power to wield the Wu Xing, and we are those people."

"Correct Om—"

"Woahwoahwoah, hold on. Back up. Five elements?" Raimundo interrupted, looking puzzled. Clay was similarly baffled but Kimiko seemed to understand.

"As there are in Japanese philosophy, in Chinese lore there are five traditional elements instead of just the four that exist in Western culture," she explained.

"Yes," Omi added. "Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, and Metal."

"Very good Omi, Kimiko," said Master Fung. "Then you will have noticed that even though there are five elements, there are only four of you."

Omi and Kimiko seemed stunned; clearly this had not occurred to them in the entire time they had been training at the Xiaolin temple. Raimundo and Clay, having only become privy to the fact that there were actually five elements only seconds ago, were merely surprised.

"So you're saying there's supposed to be a Dragon of Metal?"

"Precisely, Raimundo."

"So why ain't he—or she, Kimmy don't gimme that look—here at the temple with us?"

"That's just it kids," Dojo cut in, wringing his scaly forepaws together. "There's a reason why it's so rare that the Xiaolin temple receives a Dragon of the Metal. I mean, before Dashi, there was a fairly steady stream of them, but it was easier back then because the population was so small and everyone was stuck together in tiny villages. It was easy to pick out Dragons of Metal and bring 'em in for training, but since Mei—" He paused awkwardly, looking highly discomforted, and started to chew on his tail. A bad habit but one he refused to break.

"Since what?"

"Well...since...since Dashi's time we...we've not had a Dragon of Metal."

"Not a single one?"

"We've had a couple pop up but they've never lasted long."

"What...what do you mean?"

"Let's...let's just say they have an unfortunate tendency to er...kick the bucket a lot earlier than they should...the position, it's...it's supposed to be cursed, you see, but even I don't know why."

The young monks fell into uneasy silence as they thought of Jack and his possible fate until Clay, unwilling to dwell on the subject any longer, broke it.

"But why were...I mean, _are_ they so hard to find? We were easy enough to round up."

"Well sure you were; it's not hard to find super-powered kids with crazy martial arts skills and a rudimentary form of control over their element. Omi was already here at the temple—and maybe that gave him the edge over others who might have developed the water element, who knows?—and back when we first contacted your guys' families your chi were lit up like metaphorical Christmas trees."

"If this is how you say, then why have you not located the Dragon of Metal?"

"Look here Omi," explained Master Fung, holding the scroll out to the young monk. "Do you see this circle? Tell me what you see."

"Metal is placed at the centre of the other elements...but Master Fung, I thought all elements were equal, and not a single one is to be placed to the forefront before the others lest the world be tipped into chaos?"

"You are correct Omi, but this scroll does not explain how each element must balance out all the others, but how one might locate a Dragon of Metal."

"I don't understand..."

"That's what makes it so difficult, Omi," Dojo chipped in. "You see, in order for a Dragon of Metal to be able to tap into their elemental powers, they must be exposed to four other people, each wielding the other four elements."

"Quite so," concurred Master Fung. "Earth, wind, fire and water are very obvious in the world around us; one only needs to walk on the ground, breathe the air, sit around a hearth, or drink from any stream to take part in them. Of them all, fire is perhaps the most elusive, given that it needs a spark to flare up into a powerful blaze, but metal is more elusive still. It requires much work to bring the raw material to the surface and work it to one's will."

"Alright, I'm following, but I'm really not sure what this has to do with Spicer."

"No, Raimundo? I should have thought it was obvious. After all, can any of you tell me what Jack used to send Chase Young to the ground during the Showdown?"

There was a short pause then Kimiko spoke up.

"A rivet."

Everyone stared at her but Master Fung who simply closed his eyes and nodded as if this had confirmed all that he'd theorized about.

"Kimiko, how can you be certain?" Omi enquired.

"The Falcon's Eye...it appeared in my hand after Jack lost the Showdown, right? When the dust settled Chase was just sitting there staring at something in his hand. He was totally creeping me out so...I...I took a look at it. It was a rivet. Kinda hard to tell at first, but definitely a rivet."

"And Spicer did not have a weapon that would fire random metal objects at those around him?" Master Fung asked.

"If he did we certainly didn't see if before then."

"I see. So, taking this into account, and perhaps imagining that Spicer did not have such a handy weapon, can we not infer that when the young man panicked and something small and distinctly _metal _at hand came to his aid? Omi did you not just recount to us how Spicer's life was saved when Chase Young's charge was halted by a spike of _metal_? And that he was further protected by a _metal_ cage?"

Raimundo stared at Master Fung in horror.

"Who are you...and what have to done to Master Fung?"

"...I beg your pardon?"

"Dude...you just spelled something out for us as opposed to giving us cryptic words of wisdom that we can't possibly figure out until we learn the lesson that goes with it. What gives?"

The other three monks glared at Raimundo in disbelief, and after a few moments he shifted uncomfortably beneath their disapproving gazes.

"Um...never mind then."

"However crassly Raimundo might word it, Master Fung, he has a point," Omi conceded, gazing up at his teacher with beseeching eyes. "Is what you are saying true? Is Jack really the Dragon of Metal?"

"All the evidence seems to point that way, Omi."

"But why has it taken him so long to start accessing these powers?" Kimiko pointed out seemingly struggling to digest all this new startling information. "Jack's known us for years and he's never shown any particular influence over metal at all."

"Asides from them darn robots of his, and we kick those to pieces no problem, even with all their fancy upgrades."

"Alright, three theories to that question," said Dojo, holding up three stubby digits. "One: Spicer's a late bloomer; because the human body has to be mature enough to handle the presence of such strong nature-magick, it's not uncommon that the development of a Xiaolin element is stunted if bodily growth is also delayed."

"Well we can count that one out."

"Yeah, Spicer's always been freakishly tall, even back when we first met."

Dojo put down one finger.

"Theory two: Spicer doesn't believe in magic..."

"What, seriously?"

"If the mind rejects magic so does the body. If the body rejects what is naturally a part of itself, the body goes kaput."

"Like it matters why," Kimiko cut in dismissively. "That's not a factor anyway. Jack's seen Shen Gong Wu; he's seen what Wuya and Chase and Hannibal can do. Spicer believes in magic."

Dojo put down a second finger.

"Theory three: although Spicer is physically mature, something about his body's make up is preventing him from accessing his elemental abilities." He put down the final digit and returned to fisting his paws into the fabric of Master Fung's robes.

"Like what?"

"I dunno, a heart defect or something? Anything health-related could put Spicer at risk should his body overtax itself by summoning his powers. If we've eliminated the first two theories, then this is the only thing we've got left."

"Is that a legit theory?"

"But of course, Raimundo," confirmed Master Fung. "Did you not know that the four of you young ones were not the only people who could have been destined to become Xiaolin monks?"

That prompted yet another stunned silence, and Dojo privately thought that if he only had a yen for each one put into effect today...

"Then...then Master Fung...we are not the chosen ones?"

"You misunderstand me, Omi; you are most certainly the chosen ones, as you have been since the moment you were taken into this temple and taught the ways of the Xiaolin monks. But before that there was a slim chance any one of you might not have come here. In this world of ours today, the vast majority of people have become out of touch with the lore of the past and the magic that intertwines around mankind and nature and binds them into one solid being. The bonds have long since started fraying and so almost all of the world's population has become disconnected from the magic that was once at their fingertips. However, some remain in touch with nature and it is these people who may develop Xiaolin elements. A person who is to develop elemental abilities must do so before they reach adulthood or the chance is lost to them forever and as Dojo said, it is vital that the person is physically mature, believes in magic, and has no detrimental health problems. If these requirements are not met and yet the person strives to obtain elemental powers, they very well may die. You four fit all the requirements, and thus you stand before me here today."

"So...in a nutshell, the body prevents itself from accessing its internal magic if it thinks it won't be able to deal with it."

"Yes Raimundo."

"Couldn't you have just said that then?—OW! Girl, you have got to stop doing that..."

"So if Jack's body prevented itself from using his element because he's got some bad health problem that could kill him, why would it suddenly start now?"

"Well that's obvious, ain't it," Clay said darkly, making his fellow monks jump. It was the first time he'd spoken in a while. "It was a life or death situation and Spicer's body permitted itself to use his element so as to prevent Chase Young from killin' him."

"Exactly so, Clay."

"He's never had cause to use it before has he? I mean, even when Chase threw him to that dinosaur or tried to squash him like a bug, Jack weren't in no real danger cuz we were there. Every showdown and kick-around and rough-up going, we've always been there to drag Jack's sorry butt out of serious trouble. He's always known that even though we're on opposite sides an' all and we don't always treat him as we should, bein' the good guys, we'd never actually try to kill Jack or nothin'."

"But when Chase became very angry," Omi concluded sorrowfully, "Jack thought that nobody was coming to help him. Hannibal and Wuya had already fled and we were in the process of leaving; for the first time Jack was forced to defend himself against something that most definitely wished to whack him off."

"Damn it, Omi," Clay muttered, pulling his hat own over his reddening cheeks. "That's 'knock him off'."

"All right so I get all this," Raimundo said, starting to look very frustrated. "But where does getting swallowed by the wall come into it?"

"There is a technique, young monks, one that I have not yet taught you, which Jack's element enabled him to do in a moment of sheer terror and primal need to escape," Master Fung admitted. "It is possible for a Xiaolin monk, though it might take him or her years to accomplish properly and safely, to teleport from location to location using their element. For example, in the future, once he's learned how to do it, Omi might step into a basin of water in the temple courtyard and transport himself to the South China Sea.

"Do you mean to say, Master Fung, that the shiny silvery thing behind Jack before he vanished...that was..."

"Metal. Yes. It is likely that Spicer summoned it from the rock behind him and used it to teleport. Where to I cannot possibly guess, but again, I must reiterate, this technique is extremely difficult to do, and it is for this reason I asked that you not get your hopes up. I regret that I must admit he probably did not arrive at his destination alive; even if he didn't have the disease or defect that usually keeps him from his element, his lack of energy and the training required to pull off such teleportation would be enough to kill him."

"Then why..."

"Tell you such a thing? To prepare you for the future should I be wrong against all odds and Spicer has indeed survived this ordeal."

"Then we must go out and look for him at once," Omi exclaimed looking ready to dash out of the door at any second.

"I'll do it," Dojo volunteered firmly. "It's the least I can do."

"Thank you, Dojo," said Master Fung, restoring the ancient scroll to a place more befitting its importance. He then reopened the exit out of the temple library and led the way out into the courtyard.

It had rained sometime in the early hours of the morning, while everyone was still asleep, filling the air with the sharp, fresh smell of damp earth and stone, tinged with wood smoke, fragrant incense, and wet greenery. The distant hills were wreathed with drapes of mist that seamlessly merged with the pale sky, but through the near-opaque white gleamed the silver disk of the sun and the brightness of the day seemed imbued with new hope. The young Dragons-in-training looked somewhat soothed as they inhaled the crisp air and watched as Dojo scuttled onto the ground from Master Fung's shoulder, grew to full-size, and took off into the air. A few feet off the ground he circled the courtyard and hovered above the wan young monks, gazing down at them with eyes full of sadness.

"I'll find him, kids, don't you worry," he assured them gently and only saw fit to leave once they'd nodded and given him weak smiles in response to his own. With the creak of sinew and bone Dojo launched himself higher into the air and was soon lost from sight.

"Should we not have gone with Dojo to look for Jack Spicer, Master Fung?" Omi asked quietly, his eyes still fixed on the point in the distance where they'd seen Dojo vanish into the mist.

"No Omi, now that Jack has unleashed his element, he will be far easier for Dojo to track alone."

"An' just what exactly are we supposed to do in the meantime?"

"Whatever you wish, Clay. You may train, do your chores, hone your skills, or simply meditate. All I ask is that you do something and not dwell on Spicer's situation." Master Fung turned and eyed them all melancholically. "I realise this may be hard for you to do, young ones, but I cannot stress enough how harmful to one's chi it is to dwell on something they cannot possibly effect for the time being."

"What happens if a Shen Gong Wu goes active?" Kimiko whispered. It was obvious she didn't really care at that moment but she felt she wouldn't be doing her duty if she didn't ask.

"Dojo is on a mission and as such he will suppress all other distractions until he has completed it. You may watch the scroll to see if anything does reveal itself but all things considered, Kimiko, unless the next few Shen Gong Wu are particularly powerful, I do not think that the Shen Gong Wu are anyone's target right now."

Kimiko nodded in agreement then respectfully bowed at the waist before turning and walking briskly away, her slender frame bowed under some great weight invisible to the eye. Clay and Raimundo followed suit, the former heading off to his regular meditation spot under the tree outside the temple walls, the latter hurrying to catch up with the young woman and put a comforting arm around her shoulders. Omi remained at Master Fung's side.

"Should we remain hopeful, Master Fung? Or just give up hoping at all?"

"Optimism and pessimism are the foolish, foolhardy siblings that fall to the wayside of their wise sister realism, but I fear in this case, Omi, realism defers to brother pessimism this day."

"If Dojo does not return with Jack Spicer, then what, Master?" Omi asked, his voice catching somewhat tremulously in his throat. Startled, Master Fung crouched down to look the young monk in the eye, both of which were shimmering with unshed tears.

"Then we grieve for Spicer's lost memory and, somehow, learn to move on."

* * *

><p>The mist made it unnecessary for Hannibal and Wuya to attempt concealment from Dojo as he passed only a hand's-breadth over the tree under which they sat. The resulting slipstream ruffled Ying-Ying's feathers and she screeched angrily as she was nearly pulled from her perch on the tree, but was quick to swoop to the ground and settle beside her master who was sitting on the lip of the stone basin. The witch and the bean remained silent until they were certain the serpentine dragon was out of range and then Hannibal let out a cruel cackle of laughter.<p>

"Well well, what do you think of that there fandangle of information then, sweetness?"

"It makes an inkling of sense hearing it explained like that," Wuya conceded, her mouth pursed in thought.

"So it does, hun. Well, time's a' wastin' and we'd best be hoppin' along." Ying-Ying spread her freshly preened wings and Hannibal leapt aboard before she took off. Circling Wuya's head, Hannibal continued: "Chase is a smart lad. I'm not a bettin' legume—unless the stakes are right—but even I'll wager he figured out this whole mess way before we did."

"Naturally."

"So the hunt is on, then."

"Yes," Wuya agreed.

"Oh I do love me a good game of hide an' seek," Hannibal hissed gleefully as Ying-Ying circled one last time before heading off into the mist.

Wuya stayed sitting where she was, her youthful face still crinkled with a thoughtful frown. What she'd heard Master Fung and Dojo say to the monks in confidence was a lot to take it at once, and she couldn't help but wonder what repercussions this would have for the future. Then she dismissed her thoughts as silly and useless, shaking her head of magnificent russet curls to rid herself of them. Wuya waved a hand over the basin, evaporating the water and sinking the stone beneath the earth, and vanished. When the faint miasma of evil was blown away on the strengthening breeze and the sun rose high in the sky to burn away all traces of lingering tendrils of mist, all evidence that anyone had ever sat under the tree on the hill overlooking the Xiaolin temple was eliminated.

* * *

><p>Yes, I'm aware that the original five Chinese elements are Earth, Wood, Fire, Water and Metal, but since Christy Hui—Buddha bless her beautiful XS-creating soul—has already bastardized it a bit, I figure what the heck. Still, this change makes it most difficult to adjust how the elements are supposed to interact.<p> 


	9. Chapter 8

Dojo knew there was something seriously wrong when he spotted the faint plumes of smoke rising from behind the hill where he knew Jack Spicer's mansion was. He couldn't possibly figure out what on earth might have caused the Spicer home to go up in flames, but it put the dragon very much on his guard. So much, in fact, that he landed in the hills out of view of the mansion and shrank down to his normal size. From there he continued on by walking and slithering until he mounted the crest of the hill. Below, lay the mansion or, rather, what was left of it.

Dojo had come to Spicer's home first, rather than the place they'd last seen him alive, because he knew for a fact that Spicer's subconscious mind, at the moment of his disappearance, would have been screaming out for somewhere safe, somewhere he felt truly secure, and his elemental powers would have responded to that much-craved need. Dojo might not have known the ins and outs of Spicer, nor did he particularly want to—the only part of the Goth boy he felt affinity with was his good alter ego, and that was a trip to the Ying Yang World away—but he'd figured that Spicer's house was as good of a place as any to start looking. But now that he was here, Dojo really hoped to high _Shàngdì_ that Jack hadn't returned or, if he had, that he wasn't buried under all that debris, dead and waiting to be uncovered.

When Dojo was closer, cautiously approaching the wreck and ducking in and out of sight in order to avoid detection by anyone in the vicinity, the small dragon had to gape at the ruin of the once-splendid house and its grounds. Though he'd had few reasons to visit it before, excepting the times he'd participated in raids with the Dragons-in-training, he remembered it as a lovely, two-story white-washed building with a red glazed-tile roof and large windows: a pretty dwelling amid lovely lush green gardens. Those same gardens were now destroyed, the grass scorched and blackened, the trees seemingly torn from their roots by a gale-force wind, with great cracks and gouges torn out of the ground. Here and there water collected to create a soup of swampy earth around the mansion itself, which was now little more than a burnt-out shell of charcoal, the upper levels having collapsed into the great space where Spicer's "Evil Lair" once lay.

If Dojo didn't know any better he'd have said the damage was done by the Xiaolin monks, it was all there: the burnt building, the water-logged earth that was all but torn asunder, the flattened greenery; all of it was evidence against the four young teens Dojo had left back at the temple, but there was no way they could have got here quicker than him and wreaked all this havoc...could they? No! Why would they even do such a thing? They'd all been genuinely upset and angered by Jack's supposed passing, so they'd have never done something as cruel and vindictive as to torch and destroy the lost boy's home. Dojo hmmed, and scratched his chin.

The damage was fresh, that much was certain, what with the embers still warm and the smoke still rising from the wreckage. Whoever had done it—and Dojo had a fairly good idea who the culprit was—had a clear purpose in mind: to frame the Xiaolin monks.

_But why?_

A harsh caw from above startled Dojo from his thoughts, and he looked up to see a horribly familiar shape wheeling overhead, circling in a menacingly predatory way, swooping closer and closer to the ground. With a muffled eek of shock and fear, Dojo dived for cover under the closest shelter he could find, which just so happened to be the sunken ruin of Spicer's former basement, and not a moment too soon. Mere seconds after Dojo tucked himself in an obscure corner, untouched by the smouldering embers and praying to all the hundred little Gods he wasn't discovered, he distinctly heard that blasted Ying-Ying bird touchdown, followed by a slithery noise of something small sliding off her back. Dojo repressed a shudder.

_Hannibal Bean is in the building._

"I told you we wouldn't find anythin' at that scrap heap up in that frozen wasteland up North," Hannibal said irritably to...himself? Then, a small, noiseless pop—the best Dojo could describe the weird shift in the atmosphere when people teleported into his presence—alerted him to the arrival of someone else, who approached the wreckage of Spicer's mansion with long graceful strides. This newcomer's footfalls made barely any noise on the scorched earth and Dojo realised all at once that she was a she, and she was barefoot, at the same time he caught a whiff of that familiar scent and the woman spoke aloud.

"It was worth a try, who knows what—Oh! What in the..."

_Wuya! _Oh, great skies above, what did these two want here and now?

"Well, Sweetness, unless Jackie's done some drastic remodellin' lately, I think we can rule out his house as the boy's possible location."

"Oh, be silent, Bean," the witch retorted sharply, "I need to think."

"What's there to think about?" Hannibal countered lazily. "If Jack is under all that rubble then there's nothin' we can do for him. If he's not crushed to death then he's burnt to a crisp, and if he's not under there, and I'm guessin' he's not or we'd smell a whole bunch o' barbeque—" Dojo felt his gorge rise at that statement and a strangled noise from overhead indicated Wuya was likewise disgusted "—whoever did this to the boy's house has Spicer in their grasp already, and my money's on that wretched, back-stabbin' Chase Young."

"Really now, Beanie, and you don't suspect the Xiaolin goody-goodies?

"Now why would I do that?" Hannibal drawled.

"You are seeing the same sight I am, aren't you?" Wuya snapped. "It certainly seems to me like there's four elements worth of damage here."

There was a momentary pause, and Dojo guessed Hannibal was surveying the damage.

"Don't see why they shoulda done this, they seemed mighty upset to learn Spicer mighta crocked. 'Sides, they wouldna had time, Wuya. We left right after that slitherin' little snake, Dojo, did and we know he went off to wherever he's goin' alone.

The little dragon went a very pale shade of green at that and clamped his paws over his snout to stop his teeth from audibly chatting. Had this mother of all wicked duos been spying on them back at the temple? And if so, for how long?

_Please, holy mother of Dashi, don't let them have heard about the Dragon of Metal thing..._

"Unless, of course, you're about to suggest they used the Golden Tiger Claws...but the last I understood, our own little Dragon of Metal had those last."

Dojo said some very bad words in his head that would have made Raimundo blush with embarrassment.

"Yes you're right," Wuya conceded reluctantly. Then there was a horrible pause. "Speaking of which, we should jack Jack's Wu." Hannibal chuckled appreciatively at Wuya's pun even as Dojo's heart seemed to stop in his scaly, serpentine chest. If they started rootling through the debris, they'd find him soon enough, and there was no way he'd be able to escape the two of them.

"You sensin' any Wu down there then, sweet pea?"

Dojo's immensely long life began to flash before his eyes...

"...no. Strangely enough."

"Huh. The boy musta had them all on 'im when he went missin' then."

"Clearly."

The reel of "The Life and Times of Dojo Kanojo Cho" stopped somewhere just after his fifth century and the little dragon let out the softest wheeze of relief.

_Come to think of it...Wuya's right. There are no Shen Gong Wu down here...did Jack really take them all with him when he vanished? Surely he'd have used at least one to get away from Chase...he can't be so stupid that he wouldn't..._

"So what are our options, Beanie?" Wuya asked, with a bite of impatience in her voice.

"Way I see it? It's obvious Chase's been here and had his merry little way with Spicer's property. As to why...I've got two possible theories. One, Jack really was here and Chase found 'im. The boy either refused to join Chase and Chase decided to scare 'im a little before trashin' the place and makin' off with him anyway, or the boy agreed to go with Chase."

"And Chase wrecked his house...to throw us off?

"Yeah."

"And the second theory?"

"Chase didn't find Jack here cuz Jack was never here."

"And yet caused all this destruction, why? A hissy fit?" Wuya scoffed. Hannibal laughed, the sound like a carving knife being drawn across a chalkboard. The sound set Dojo's teeth on edge and sent shivers slithering down his spine.

"Nah, this here's planned. Chase's more of a slash and trample kinda man when he's streamed. He wouldn't do damage this elaborate."

"So he's...framing the monks?"

"Now yer catchin' on, Sweetness. Wanna guess why?"

Down in the wreckage, Dojo was stumped for an answer himself and thus strained his ears to hear what either wicked fiend had to say. Wuya seemed to be contemplating the situation.

"I'll gi' yer a hint, sugar. Speakin' hypothetically, if this were a normal, everyday situation, if Jackie boy had no place to go...who would be the first person he would go to?"

"Chase Young," Wuya said, without hesitation, her voice sharp with certainty and more than a little bitterness.

"Right. But y'see now, Chase has just gone done tried to kill the boy. Where do you suppose the he'll go next?"

"Well, I suppose he'd come crawling to you or I."

"He wouldna come crawlin' to me, Sweetness, I scare the livin' daylights outta the kid; he keeps his distance. Heh, he's a smart lad when he wants to be. So, if Jack couldna come to _you_, say cuz he can't find you seeing as you're a slippery one to track down, who would be very next on his list?"

Comprehension dawned on both Dojo and Wuya at the same time.

"The Xiaolin monks," the witch whispered incredulously. "By all the Gods and Demons, if Jack manages to get home..."

"He'll think the Xiaolin lot are out to get 'im too, meanin' the kid's out in the world all alone. Hell, he can't even go to 'is parents unless he wants to get himself locked in the loony bin."

"Chase means to draw him out into the open then, make Jack vulnerable in the hope that Jack will come crawling back to him."

"Sure thing, darlin'; Spicer's first pick is also his very last resort. Chase knows this all too well."

Dojo heard nothing from the two of them for some time and he was beginning to wonder if they'd left when, all of a sudden, Wuya spoke, making him startle.

"This is, of course, assuming Jack didn't already arrive back here and Chase has him already."

"Naturally."

"So that's next on the agenda, then."

"Ladies first, I insist," Hannibal said, his oily Texan drawl making a mockery of the gentlemanly sentiment. Wuya snorted in a very unladylike fashion before the air distorted again and, with a pop, she vanished. A screech from Ying-Ying indicated that she'd taken off, wings beating the air soundlessly, her master borne on her feathery back. Dojo could hear her cawing as she circled over head and then, abruptly, silence but for the still-crackling embers and the thudding of Dojo's heart. The dragon took the time to ponder what he'd do next. Though it chilled him to the bone to even think of such a thing, he knew he'd have to do some of the espionage work he so desperately hated and stake out Chase's home. The sooner he could figure out whether Jack was being held prisoner (willingly or unwillingly) in Chase's palace then the sooner he could report back to Master Fung and the kids, then plot a daring jailbreak to spring Spicer, or continuing searching for the lost youth as the case may be.

Dojo waited for a few more minutes, just to make absolutely sure Wuya and Hannibal were really gone, eventually flicking out his tongue to taste the air. Asides from the obvious stench of hot ash and molten metal—overlaid with just a subtle hint of burning—and the faint, sour tinge of evil that the two Heylin fiends left wherever they went, there was nothing to suggest a cunning trap or that one of them had remained behind. Still, Dojo was careful when he began to crawl out from under the debris of Spicer's former house.

He'd just crawled out into the open air when a large hand with black claws seized his tail, and Dojo screamed like the sky was coming down around his ears.

creeps in posts and runs away


	10. Chapter 9

_Asides from the obvious stench of hot ash and molten metal—overlaid with just a subtle hint of burning—and the faint, sour tinge of evil that the two Heylin fiends left wherever they went, there was nothing to suggest a cunning trap or that one of them had remained behind. Still, Dojo was careful when he began to crawl out from under the debris of Spicer's former house. He'd just crawled out into the open air when a large hand with black claws seized his tail, and Dojo screamed like the sky was coming down around his ears._

"LET GO LET GO! OH GODS, PLEASE DON'T HURT ME! I'M TOO YOUNG TO DIE!" he shrieked, his voice reaching a pitch reserved for soprano opera singers and frightened young girls, as he closed his eyes then flailed and scratched at the thing with a death grip on his tail. A rusty groan and the creak of much-put-upon metal reached Dojo's ears above his screaming and, with a sound like a siren suddenly sputtering and dying; he stopped wailing and opened his eyes.

The remnants of what the dragon assumed was a Jack-Bot lay before him, half submerged beneath the rubble from which Dojo had just emerged. At least, the dragon assumed it was a Jack-Bot; there was no way he could mistake the characteristic skull-like print on its face or the freaky hands, even though the metal exoskeleton was warped horribly out of shape from intense heat and falling debris, licked with tongues of suit, and oozing engine oil like viscous blood. In truth, Dojo thought as he wrinkled his sensitive nose at the acrid stench of the oil, it didn't look much differently than it might have coming out of a battle with the Xiaolin monks. But then he caught sight of the vicious gouges scored into the back of the android's head, exposing sparking bits of wire and circuitry, and the lack of its entire bottom half and the little dragon had to suppress a shudder.

The Xiaolin dragons would have just smashed the Jack-Bot to bits; they wouldn't have battered it around like this, played with it, before leaving it to die.

_Can robots die_? Dojo wondered before the android before him let out a hacking noise that sounded quite similar to a man's dying breaths.

"Identifying...organic life form...accessing memory-d-d-d-daaaaaatabase—" Dojo had to wince when the android's low drone skipped and dragged electronically, scratching over eardrums that were not partially blocked by shrunken Shen Gong Wu for once "—processing...processing...life form identified."

"You could have just asked," the dragon muttered irately.

"Dojo Kanojo Cho...dragon...guardian of the Shen Gong Wu scroll of the Xiaolin Temple," the Jack-Bot recited in a tone that sounded almost human in its weariness.

"Yes yes, that's me," Dojo confirmed, struck with the sudden urge to shake the pile of junk to move things along, after all he had questions to ask, but then he felt terrible; such a thing would probably mark the end of the Jack-Bot, though it probably wouldn't have made much difference anyway. "Where is Spicer? Jack Spicer. Was he here?"

"I do not know where Master Jack is," the Jack-Bot answered, vibrating a little as blue sparks spat from the deep rends in its armour plating. "We have not seen him since early morning yesterday."

"Then Jack hasn't been here," Dojo sighed. "Chase Young hasn't got hold of him."

At that the Jack-Bot unleashed a tirade of angry beeping and whirring all of which was stopped dead by a spurt of fresh blood—no, _oil_!—spilling onto the ground and that same harsh, clanking cough. The red glow in the android's eyes flickered, dimmed, and it groaned mechanically.

"Chase Young will not find Master Jack," it determined, voice radically weaker than before. "Master Jack has made sure he will not and we have made sure also."

"Spicer's alive?!"

"He contacted us and sent us orders just this morning. I was the receiver for that call."

"Then you know where he is," the little dragon exclaimed, so excited he could barely get the words out.

"I repeat, Dojo Kanojo Cho, I do not know where Master Jack is."

"And why not!"

"Upon delivering his orders we asked if Master Jack would like to be picked up from his location and he said no. He said to delete his coordinates and to erase them from our hard drives."

"What kind of orders did Jack give you?" Dojo asked, hoping for some clue at least.

"That we initiate emergency responses RP1, AGS6, and H5SGW."

"And what are those?"

"Protocol dictates that we erase all memory of such responses and the code sequences within us that tell us what to do upon completion of said responses," the Jack-Bot recited.

"Well then what the heck can you tell me?!"

"That Master Jack is a genius and he knew what he was doing," the android seemed to sigh. Dojo paused to contemplate this, quickly coming upon a realization.

"He was protecting himself from Chase Young..."

"So we assumed, my compatriots and I, when Chase Young came looking for him. We could not tell him where Master Jack was hidden and then he attacked..." the robot's eyes flickered again and a small tinny sob issued from its speaker. "...but for those who left to complete Master Jack's orders...I am the only one...left."

Dojo was immediately struck with the memory of a battle for a Shen Gong Wu not long after Omi's time-travelling stint to change Chase's past; as per usual Jack had shown up with his posse of robots, had all of them but two or three kicked to pieces, and was then mocked shamelessly by the monks. Wuya and Chase, watching the proceedings, seemed to be smirking in synchronised agreement.

"Seriously, bro," Raimundo had choked out around helpless laughter. "They're useless. Do them a favour and just send them to the great scrap heap up in sky, huh?"

The metal creations had been insulted before—that was nothing new—but they'd never actually been told by the enemy that their master should effectively _euthanize_ them. They'd never been made to feel so worthless and the robots seemed to slump miserably. One of them actually put its head in its hands and a companion wobbled over on busted flight-stabilizers to pat it gently on the back. Jack had cast his creations one profoundly despairing glance and then shocked them all by producing a wrench from nowhere and hurling it at the Wind Dragon's head. Taken by surprise, the monks did nothing to apprehend the projectile and it struck Raimundo directly between the eyes, sending his arse tumbling straight to the ground.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP! THEY HAVE EMOTION CHIPS AND DO NOT NEED YOU BITCHING AT THEM ALL THE TIME!" Jack had screeched, a wholly unholy gleam entering his scarlet eyes even as he'd plunged a hand into his scuffed leather trench coat, presumably searching for something else to throw at the tormentors. It was the first time the young Dragons-in-training had ever heard Spicer swear like that and, quite frankly; it scared them a little bit despite knowing they could effortlessly trounce Jack in a fight. That had been their cue to snatch the Wu and hightail it out of there.

"DO NOT INSULT MY BABIES. EVER. NEVER EVER EVER." Jack had hollered after them, and Dojo had glanced back to see the youth soothingly rubbing the dejected Jack-Bot's shoulder. "AND THAT GOES FOR YOU TWO D-BAGS AS WELL!" the youth had continued on to a simply stunned Wuya and Chase. "PICK ON ME ALL YOU DAMN WANT BUT YOU LEAVE THEM OUT OF IT."

Dojo didn't know how the witch or dragon-lord had reacted to being told off in such a way, but Jack hadn't shown up to the next two showdowns in a row after that. When he finally did make an appearance, there was no disguising the limp or fading bruises.

The flashback seemed to grab hold of Dojo's throat and squeeze a little until there was a definite lump taking up residence there. This Jack-Bot knew its fellows were dead, and also knew that it itself was going to die very soon if the damage done to its body was any indication. Carefully, Dojo put his hands on the android, ignoring the hiss of singeing scale, and sort of awkwardly cradled its head in his stubby little dragon arms.

"Hey hey, it's okay," he soothed, though his voice was a little thick with emotion. Dojo didn't know this Jack-Bot personally but the androids themselves had been around since the beginning, since the very first day when the Mantis Flip Coin had gone active and Jack had claimed it before them. It saddened him to think of one of them going out of the world in a slow and painful manner, not surrounded by its comrades and felled nobly at the hands of the enemy...

Then anger started to boil up from within him. In all his many centuries of living, and only a few years less than that travelling around the globe atop the shoulders of countless Grand Masters, he'd seen a great many Lords, Kings, Emperors, all heady on the sense of Divine Right to Rule, sending thousands upon thousands of men to die for them in battle, not once lifting a finger to fight alongside them. Spicer was no different sending his Jack-Bots to fight in his stead, and in fact he'd gone one step further. Rather than keeping the androids cold, unfeeling pieces of steel, which would have neither known nor cared that they were flying to their demise, he'd imbued them with human emotion. Among others, he'd given them the ability to fear facing the enemy and the death that would follow, and to grieve for their fallen comrades, but not, apparently the freewill to resent their creator or the desire to rebel. As Omi might have said, it really grabbed Dojo's goat.

"How can you serve him?" Dojo growled in the same voice he used when people called him a gecko, of all things, and threatened the young monks or Master Fung. "How can you live like that, serving a boy who sends you all out to die day after day, and doesn't even acknowledge how brutal it is that you've all got emotion chip things while doing it? He's a monster!"

His tirade was cut off by another angry screech from the android, though this time it seemed to realise it should not exert its energy with displays of robot fury and stopped after only a few violent beeping noises.

"Master Jack is no monster!" it argued. "We serve...we served him willingly and he was good to us. He maintained us and ensured we were running smoothly. Master Jack has limited resources and a pitiful allowance in comparison to his desire for expenditure. He made us from inferior materials, yes, but it was the best he had, and he spared no expense on our internal workings. Master Jack is a genius with a ridiculously high IQ; it would be unfathomable to think that he would not reuse salvageable parts of his creations. We do not die, Dojo Konojo Cho. Our bodies might not be those we were originally given, back when we were first manufactured and allowed by Master Jack to choose our own personalities and gimmicks, but our hard drives are still the same. I have been around since your first meeting with Master Jack. I was the Jack-Bot smashed to pieces by the monk, Clay Bailey, and soon after I was kicked apart by the girl, Tohomiko Kimiko, on a mountainside. I've been present for every battle and this is because I cannot die so long as Master Jack is my Master. With each new Jack-Bot he makes, he programs them reusing the identity chips of those he has lost in battle, and thus we are reborn."

Dojo was speechless, his eyes welling with tears at the truly heartfelt words.

"The only Jack-Bots Master has ever lost forever are those very select few who have taken damage directly to their identity chips, and Master Jack has mourned them as he would any living creature. He is not just our Master but our friends, and we his only friends."

Dojo's bottom lip wobbled and a fat tear snaked down his cheek. He clung to the android and sobbed, missing the fact that the Jack-Bot's flickering eyes were barely brighter when they were illuminated than when they weren't. The oil had stopped leaking copiously out onto the ground by now, instead slowed to a steady dribble, but the wiring inside was still sparking occasionally.

"Don't you worry, Jack-Bot! I'm gonna go find Jack, I'm gonna go find him and once I do he can fix you, yeah? He can fix you up good as new and you'll be reborn again!"

"No, Dojo Konojo Cho, I am beyond that, as are those who Chase Young vaporized when we tried to defend Master Jack's house. Our identity chips have sustained irreparable damage; I cannot remember my existence before Master Jack began his quest for World Domination, and even in the timeline I can remember, huge chunks are missing. No, this will be the end of me. For good."

"But...but, you can't die. You just can't..."

"I shall go to...ah...where was it again? The great scrap heap in the sky?"

Guilt surged through the dragon even though it had not been him who'd made the disparaging remark towards the androids some years ago. He burbled apologies in Raimundo's stead and vowed that he'd give the Wind-Dragon a stern talking-to once he returned home. The Jack-Bot gave a hacking chuckle, or maybe it was another sob. Dojo couldn't tell.

"Make good on your promise to find Master Jack. Make sure he's safe," the android merely said, powering through the dragon's apologies. "I...I entrust him to you."

Then the light in the Jack-Bot's eyes died out and, with an ominous whirring sound much like a laptop powering down, the android's body slumped lifelessly, never to move again. Much affected, Dojo gently lowered the Jack-Bot to the ground and, stepping back respectfully, pulled a handkerchief from nowhere and noisily blew his nose, hiccupping and sniffling. Calming down, the dragon rubbed salty residue from his red-rimmed eyes, and pondered on that.

He remembered Good-Jack, whose ultimate goody-goody attitude had irritated and scared the monks and Dojo for all its intensity, and how he'd sacrificed that part of himself—a wholly more competent and happy version of the original they'd all come to know—for the purpose of defeating evil. Dojo had seethed with jealousy and displeasure when Good-Jack had gone around and integrated himself with Master Fung, seeming to replace the little dragon with all his fawning over and caring for the elderly monk, but had not been able to help getting over all that and feeling a immeasurable sadness at losing Good-Jack and gaining back the one firmly ensconced on the side of evil.

But then anyone who called their own creations their babies, and reacted violently towards anyone insulting said creations, couldn't really be evil, could they? No. It seemed not. At first, Dojo'd only gone looking for Spicer to put the young monks' minds at rest, and put down his own churning guilt that his actions had potentially lead to the boy's death, but now he had better, iron-clad reasons. He would honour the Jack-Bot; he would scour the whole globe until he found Jack Spicer and personally ensure that the youth was restored to his entire robot-building glory. Dojo'd be damned to Diyu before he let the many Jack-Bots destroyed by Chase Young go without anybody attempt to restore them to life, and Spicer would be the lad for the job. And we wouldn't just do it for the Jack-Bots; he'd do it for Jack too. He'd do it for the goodness he knew existed in the Goth, regardless of how the Spicer boy insisted he was evil through and through.

But first, Dojo produced the Changing Chopsticks and started rootling around in his left ear. He had a call to make.

Somewhere in the Xiaolin Temple, a cell phone started to ring. Shockingly, it was not Kimiko who answered it, but Master Fung.

"Dojo?"

Well, as the elderly, eternally-wise, mystical Master of the Temple it simply wouldn't do to ruin the whole image by showing the young monks the array of techno gismos he had at his disposal, which were far more reliable and a lot less likely to be stolen, for keeping in touch with the outside world.

"Jack Spicer's alive," were Dojo's first words in lieu of a greeting.

"Is he with you now?" Master Fung's heart leapt in his chest.

"No, but I know for a fact he's not pushing daisies..." and then Dojo went on to recount his morning to Master Fung, his voice becoming muffled with suppressed emotion down the line when he got to the part of the now-deceased Jack-Bot.

"I see," Master Fung said when Dojo had finished. "The news of Hannibal and Wuya is most troubling, not only that they have successfully spied on us without our knowledge, but that they too are hunting for Jack. Worst of all you must also contend with Chase Young."

"Hey, they might have superior magic in terms of combat, but I'd like to see them sniff out something better than a dragon. In any case, they're flying blinder than I am with the kid's whereabouts. All three of them aren't even entirely sure he's still alive, but I am."

"This is true. But we shall have to keep a watchful eye out for them in the future. Have you at least an idea where Spicer might be?"

"Not yet, but I'm gonna go visit where he was last seen. With any luck I might find some clues there."

"Very well. Report back when you next can, Dojo."

"Sure thing. Oh, and by the way," the little dragon said before hanging up, his voice taking on a lecturing tone. "If this takes longer than we thought it would, I'd better not come home to you cozying up to that lady dragon again..."

"Dojo."

"All right, all right, I'm going. Make sure to wash behind your ears and clip your toenails while I'm out, sheesh."

Master Fung could only sigh in exasperation at the dial tone when it began to drone in his ear.


End file.
